


Love and the Comeback Kid

by Tammany



Series: Town and Country: Sherlock and Janine [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Do-Over, F/M, Gen, Making Up, Second Time, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 14:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1350850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok. Enough of you liked Sherlock and Janine that I wrote at least this sequel to "Cottage Dialogue." Sherlock's at least trying to do it right this time, and is finding it more difficult and spooky and vulnerable than he knows how to manage well. Guilt, inexperience, and desire meet and have a loud conversation in his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and the Comeback Kid

He didn’t like being at a disadvantage. He didn’t like knowing he was starting so far downhill from “wonderful.” It felt too much like his eternal impasse with Mycroft, only worse: with Mycroft he could rage against the total unfairness of it all. Insist on his own awesomeness. Poke fun at his archenemy.

With Janine there was no room left for anything but humility and hope.

Sherlock was unused to either.

She came up from Sussex—Brighton to Victoria Station and from there by Tube to the Baker Street Station. She walked the rest of the way with her big paisley tote thrown over her shoulder. He heard her come in and held his breath as she came up the stairs to stand in the ever-open doorway of the flat. She leaned against the door-jamb.

“Hello, you,” she said.

He was sitting in his chair. He smiled—he aimed for the one people told him was wicked and charming. “Hello, you.”

He tried to be casual. Tried to pretend he hadn’t been listening for her arrival; tried not to show that he had to make himself stay in the chair rather than leap up and meet her at the door, or even race down the stairs to greet her. He was Sherlock—he had to be cool. If he wasn’t cool, what was he?

He already had so much makeup work to do!

She looked around. “Putting me in John’s old room?”

“Yep.”

She grinned, then. “Good boy, Shay-Shay. Right choice. Gi’ me a mo’ and I’ll be back down.” She thundered up the flight to the third storey, and he could hear her moving around in the room above. He tried to decide whether to get up, or stay sitting. Play the violin? Stand in front of the fireplace? Get up and hug her?

He’d hugged her when he left her place in Sussex three weeks before. It had been wary and cautious. He’d told himself then that it was her—she was afraid. He’d made her afraid.

Later—days later—he’d realized the obvious. _He_ was afraid. Janine was fearless. Janine, who he knew had to have stared hate at Magnussen as he flicked at her naked eye. Janine—who walked into his hospital room and turned off his morphine and handed him tabloids covered with her lunatic “exposes” and gave him hell for being a bastard and made every single word strike deeper than Mary’s bullet.

He’d been the one slipping shy into her arms, unsure he was welcome or ever would be again. It had been his own fear drumming in his chest, behind the scars and the sorrow and shame.

She came down the stairs with a rattle and bang, louder than John if only because her heeled boots beat a tattoo on the old wooden treads in ways John’s brogues and trainers never did. She stopped in the doorway again. “Looks good. Whole place looks good. Did you clean?”

He nodded.

He’d cleaned. Mrs. Hudson had laughed at him as he’d raced around clearing out the fridge and wiping counters and Hoovering the carpet.

“She’s been here before, dear,” Hudders had pointed out. “She knows what you’re like.”

“That’s the problem,” he’d snapped. “She knows me quite well. Too well. I’d like her to think maybe I’ve changed.”

Hudders had laughed and laughed and laughed. It wasn’t reassuring.

Janine hovered in the door, hesitating. “Are you glad I’m here?” she said, quietly.

He nodded again.

She cocked her head. “Sure?”

“Sure.”

She stepped in warily…then snorted. “I’m being a complete twat, I am. Sorry-sorry-sorry. Nerves. Worried about this ever since you left, and worked myself into a complete fit. Arse over tits.” She strode across the floor and dropped into “John’s” chair. She patted the overstuffed, worn arm. “I see you brought this back in. Always did think you were a fool to haul it all the way upstairs.”

He’d moved it the weekend he’d first started dating her.

He licked his lips, determined to be honest this time. “I was missing John. He…he’s the first close friend I ever had. He and Mary—it was hard. I missed him. I’m afraid it was too weird seeing you sitting in his chair when you came over. So I moved it.” He gave a lopsided grin. “Two birds with one stone. It gave me an excuse to have you sit in my chair with me, too.”

She chuckled, but her eyes were sharp. “Want me out of John’s chair now?”

“Nope.” He can say that, now. “I’m doing better than I was.” Then, feeling brave, he said, “Wouldn’t mind you sitting in my chair with me again, though…”

She snorted. “Tsk. As if! Shameless, you are, aren’t you? Not happening, Sonny Jim. Not yet, anyway.”

“Well, if you’re going to be shy…”

She threw the Union Jack pillow at his head. “Shy? My arse. Cautious, you twat.” She stood, then, and prowled toward the kitchen—and shrieked. “Oh-my-God, Sherlock, there’s been a break-in! The poor bastards had to clean up before they could see there was nothing to steal!”

He pushed up out of the chair and ambled up behind her, leaning on the frame of the sliding doors into the kitchen…pretending it wasn’t a variant of the arm-trick on the sofa. Pretending he wasn’t imagining letting his arm fall around her shoulders, or tuck around her waist. He was pleased, though, for all her teasing. She’d noticed he’d cleaned…

She _noticed_. She saw and she observed, and her continued clucking and sass showed she understood. She knew he was _trying_.

She paced around the cleared kitchen table. “My God, Sherl, we could even eat here. I could cook instead of calling for take-out! You should have robbers in more often!” The grin she shot him was infectious.

He grinned back, enjoying it.

Janine laughed. He’d missed it.

“I can ask Lestrade if he knows any burglars who do windows,” he said…and almost melted when she chuckled, a deep, purling sound like water in an old clay pipe.

“Ask after one who’ll do the washing up, too,” she said. “Keep this kitchen nice.”

He couldn’t think of a thing to say next. He wanted to say something clever, something she’d think of as Sherlock-y. Instead all he seemed to be able to do was look at her and think about the fact that she’d come—she really had taken the train from Sussex and landed in 221B and they really were going to the museum together later and she’d spend the night. She’d really done it. He’d almost expected her to cancel at the last minute.

Everyone he knew had expected her to cancel at the last minute. John. Lestrade. Molly, who he was afraid had rather hoped for Janine to cancel. Mary, who was still waiting to see if Janine would ever talk to her again. Hudders. They’d all thought Janine would stop and realize that he was the bastard who’d betrayed her, and would tap out.

Instead she was there, looking unsure of what to say herself. She was wearing a casual blouse—grey with golden and pink cabbage roses, a blouse he’d never seen before, a romantic blouse, and her hair was tied back with a band made of twisted yellow cord. She wore a pair of jeans he knew from memory were so soft they were like chamois, a pleasure to stroke. He’d helped her out of that pair one night. He could remember what they felt like under his fingers.

“You’re here,” he said, knowing nothing else to say that mattered at that precise moment.

She nodded, hesitant and contained. “Yeah,” she said, sounding a bit surprised herself.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Coke? Irn-bru? Seven-up?”

“Tea. God. Please. Tea.” Her voice jittered, uneasily. “Mother’s milk, it is. Can get through anything better with a cuppa tea inside me.” She hugged herself, arms clutching the points of her elbows. “Stupid. A bit late to be nervous now.”

He shook his head. “No. Not stupid.”

Her mouth twitched. “Has to be the first time you ever told anyone that. Shall I call the tabloids to let ‘em know?”

“Can you turn it into a paying gig?”

She shrugged. “Bloom’s off the rose, I think. I’m old news now. ‘Sherlock Holmes’ Irish Slag.’ Improve your PR, though. New nickname, yeah? ‘Humble Holmes.’”

He snorted, and wove past her to fill the kettle at the sink. “Humble? Moi?”

She chuckled. “’S not impossible.”

He gave her a knowing look. “Liar.”

“All right. I confess, it’s impossible,” she said, smiling.

“Anyway, it’s not the only time I ever told anyone they weren’t stupid.”

She gave him a campy, over-done look of disbelief, forcing back laughter.

He smiled as he turned on the kettle and opened the cupboard with the tea. “It’s true! I told Mycroft. Once.”

“Drunk at the time?”

He grinned, feeling the strange, wonderful feeling of mouth spreading, laughter crinkling his cheeks, eyes narrow with amusement. “Two-three drinks over my limit, yeah.” Then, more seriously, he said, “No. Not really. Mike knows he’s smarter. We fight about it—you’ve heard us fight about it—but he also knows I know it. Knows I’ve said it.” He put out two mugs, thinking, then said, quietly, “I… Do you want to see something I haven’t shown anyone else?”

She sobered, studying him. “Is this payback? You trying to open up and all to make up for just playing at it before?”

“A bit.” He took a deep breath. “Good faith offering?”

She thought about it, then nodded. “All right. What do you want to show me?”

He grinned then, and grabbed her hand as he moved out into the sitting room again, pulling her to stand by him as he opened up his laptop. He tried not to purr as she relaxed and leaned over, elbows on the back of the chair, chin in her palms, looking over his shoulder as he pulled up his file.

When he had it up and ready to run, he froze for a second, unsure what to say next. He cleared his throat. “Mike. Mycroft. He’s… Most people only get to see us fighting. We actually do try to keep it that way. Cuts down on the people trying to use me against him. But still. Even John doesn’t know about us working together—not really. Only from the outside.” He stared at the screen, watching the almost-invisible reflection of them together in the screen.

Without seeming to think about it she put an arm around his upper chest, just under his throat—a relaxed half-embrace. “So you’re different in private?”

“A bit. More different still in what…” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes it’s not what we say or do. It’s just what we both know. He was the only friend I had for most of my life. I’m the only friend he’s had in most of his. Ever since we were boys. Ever since I was born.” His finger hovered over the touchpad, ready to click the file awake, but he still hesitated. “This is…sort of what it’s like to see Mike really work. What it’s like to actually be there when he’s being smarter than me.” He tucked his chin. “I made it.”

She snorted and her arm tightened. “Then show me, y’silly berk. Come on—don’t keep me waiting here!”

He clicked, and the file started, and in a fraction of a second she’d already snapped, laughter ripping out, only to be stuffed back in frantically, only to break loose again, until she said, “Stop-stop-stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. I’m so sorry…”

He grinned then, happy. “Nope. It’s all right. Laugh. It’s funny. Just watch, though…”

On the screen, seen through veils of animated overlay, Astaire danced—the firecracker dance, blazes of explosives at his feet, moving like a magician, always in command even when seeming out of control. Crack-bang-boom, and as he danced the music spun—and in every layer information spun with every gesture the dancer made, as though he conducted the stream of words pouring too fast over the screen, flickering, meeting, exploding with the fire-crackers, disappearing with a wave and a spin and a flip of the dancer’s fingers. It was music and animation and dance and the clues and cues lept up and flowed away, most of them up too little time for anyone to read them, a very few forming meaningful patterns, binding with images, morphing into solutions. But all of it was controlled by the man spinning, smiling, alive on the screen, alive on the stage, alive in the dance.

“I wanted to find one in a tux,” Sherlock said. “But this was the one. It was the best—the right dance. So happy. So in control. Making it up as he goes along, and it’s impossible, no one can do that. But he does…” He waited till the animation was over, then turned it off. “Sometimes I think I’ll show it to Mycroft.” He left unstated the uncertainty. Would he understand? Would he be offended? Would the laugher convince him that Sherlock was just trying to poke fun?

“So add a note, y’ dafty,” Janine said, and unwrapped her arm long enough to swat him affectionately. “It’s not rocket science, you moron. ‘Dear Mycroft, it’s not a joke—this is just how fuckin’ brill I really think you are. Your obnoxious little brother, Sherlock.’ Even Mike’s not going to mistake that, now, is he?”

Sherlock hadn’t thought of that. He said so, a bit stunned at the simplicity of the idea.

She snorted, arm going around him again. “What is it with you, Sherlock? You can make that damned vid—and be too gormless to think of a note to explain. It’s downright cray-cray, I swear it. Sometimes I swear you’re mental—and you drive all the rest of us mental trying to keep up with you.”

“You think he’d like it, then?”

“I think he’d be a bigger idjit than you are if he didn’t,” she said.

“Not exactly reassuring,” he pointed out. “We have a history of complicated misunderstandings.” She was still behind him, he thought. He continued to watch the dim shadow reflection on the screen. Her shoulder was behind him. He sucked in breath and leaned back, letting his head rest on the turn of shoulder and neck and breast, all coming together to make the perfect hammock.

“You’re a bold one, aren’t you?” she said, amused. She gave a gentle twitch, bouncing his head—but not quite hard enough to dislodge him. “We’re not an item again, Sherl,” she said, warning him.

He didn’t know what to say, so he simply ignored her. “Need to check my email,” he said, instead, and flicked his fingers over the keys absentmindedly, focusing instead on the rise and fall of her breath and the tickle of warm air over his cheek. He threw away spam, tossed a dozen or so business-related emails into folders to look at when the weekend was done. Then he let one hand come up to hold hers, while the other pulled up Youtube.

“Dance?” he asked.

She snorted and pulled away, then. “Wicked boy,” she said. “Let’s go see a Steam Engine, eh? See if a walk over cools you off.”

Now that she was here, now that he could see her and hear her and smell the faint soap and the lime scent she favored, he didn’t think a walk would do anything of the sort. Not in a lasting way. But she was here for the exhibit.

“Ok,” he said. The weather was fine, so he left the Belstaff hanging in his bedroom, and wore only the two-piece over a silk shirt. “You ready for a long walk?”

“If you don’t hurry me along too fast, Daddy Longlegs,” she replied. “I still can’t keep up when you open up that stride. How does John manage?”

Sherlock laughed. “He trots along beside me like a little Welsh Pony by a steeplechase mount,” he confessed. “I’m his one-man exercise program.” He checked his pockets for phone and wallet and his standard array of handy little tools: lock picks, magnifying glass, a small scattering of espionage bugs stolen from MI6—and if Mycroft knew he’d have kittens. They galloped down the stair together, and Sherlock called out, “We’re off to the museum, Mrs. Hudson. Back later—don’t know if we’ll be late or not.”

Mrs. Hudson poked her head out. “Call me, Sherlock, do? I’m baking, and I’d be happy to make extra if you two will be back in time to eat it.”

“It’s never too late for mince pies,” he said, pointedly, putting on his puppy-eyes face.

Janine whacked him firmly in the ribs, making him cough and sputter. “Don’t let him boss you, Mrs. Hudson,” she laughed. “We’ll be back by dinner time. Don’t know what we’re having. If we get take out do you want us to pick you up any?”

“Oooh, that would be a treat!” Mrs. Hudson said, and looked reprovingly at Sherlock. “If it were just him I’d go from one end of the year to the next without being asked. Now _John_ was another matter. Much better manners.”

“John was making up for the rent he often missed,” Sherlock grumbled—but in truth it was quite nice being teased by the two women. They seemed so cheerful about it…

He’d learned over the past decade, one lesson at a time, that there was a difference between kind teasing and cruel teasing. He often wasn’t able to work it out for himself, but more and more he knew it when he saw it in others. Mrs. Hudson and Janine both teased him regularly, and seldom if ever wanted to hurt him.

He tucked his hand in the small of Janine’s back and pushed. “WE’re going to be late,” he called back over his shoulder to Mrs. Hudson as he chivvied Janine out the front door and onto the pavement.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Janine said, laughing. “It’s an open exhibit, you great lummox.”

“She’ll talk all afternoon if you give her a chance,” he said, in regal certainty.

“So? Let her. She’s a love.”

“She’s no better than your cat,” he responded. “Rub her ears and she’ll purr for hours. I want to see the Puffing Billy.”

“Men and machines,” Janine said, but she said it like it was an expected line, not like she was actually annoyed or bored. “Lead the way, then, Shay-Shay.”

He showed off the whole walk over, telling her the background on the development of steam power in the 17th and 18th centuries. About the engineers and the specific advances needed to turn steam engines into practical dynamos that changed the world beyond recognition. About the effect the industrial revolution had on Europe, and in particular on England.

“You looked all this up, didn’t y’, Sherl?” she said, as they came in view of the museum. “Researched it all, right?”

“Erm…”

She chuckled. “Caught you. So—why did you want to come, if it’s not something you cared about already.”

He mumbled uneasily.

She stopped and gave him a very dour look. “Sherlock Holmes…”

“Thought you were more likely to believe I wanted to see the engine than go to a movie or the Victoria and Albert or something,” he said, grumping. “After all, you’re smart. You know I don’t want to see most movies or go look at paintings or textile design or…”

“So? Yeah, you’re more likely to want to see an engine. But why study? And why dream it all up anyway?”

He stood there, feeling stupid. “Hard to ask you out if there’s no ‘out’ to ask?”

She blinked, then snorted and started for the museum, head tucked down. “You really are a manipulative bastard, Sherlock Holmes.”

He loped to catch up. Frustrated, he growled, “It’s all manipulation. You want to ask someone out, there’s got to be an out to ask her. And she’s got to want to go herself, and she’s got to believe you want to go, too, and then you’ve got to impress her. It’s all manipulation.”

She flashed a look over without stopping. “Did you really think you’d like to see the engine?”

“I thought…it had to be better than ‘Frozen’?” He wasn’t sure honesty was his best policy, really, but he was quite sure lying wasn’t.

She laughed. “So you picked something and then you crammed up on it so you could lecture all the way over?”

“I developed a comprehensive and multifaceted presentation to occupy our walk over.”

She laughed. “Shay-Shay, I…” She stopped, then said, quietly. “Don’t change. You’re just right, you and your multifaceted presentations and all.”

The exhibit turned out to be far more intriguing than he’d expected, even after having done his research. As they went through the displays Janine talked about an Irish great-uncle who’d gone to the States to get work on the Intercontinental Railroad and died of cholera in Pennsylvania. Then she talked about an uncle who was a driver for Pakrail. Then he got into a fight with an idiot who was trying to tell his son that trains had been invented in America, and the British only copied.

Then they got thrown out of the museum. But, as Sherlock pointed out, he’d won the argument conclusively and suggested to the child he not trust his father’s lectures in future, so that was at least one thing gained. And as Janine said, giggling, she’d seen the engine and that was worth the trip.

They took the Tube back to Baker Street Station. The car was full, and Sherlock grabbed the only open seat. Then, when Janine flashed amused eyebrows at him, he grabbed her wrist and tugged her down onto his lap and buried his face in her hair when the other passengers cheered. And then someone remembered where they’d seen the two of them before, and a great fuss was made that they were “back together,” and some blithering idiot insisted he give her a kiss…

He spent the next ten minutes exercising his vocabulary.

When they got out at the station he waited until the carriage had left; then, uncertain, he pulled her close and leaned in, warily, for the kiss he’d refused to give with the carriage-load of passengers hooting and watching. When she gave him an amused look, and murmured “Bashful, yeah?” his heart had given an uneasy kick. When she stretched up on tiptoe and offered her mouth, it went berserk, hammering hard enough he wondered if he should be calling the ambulance again.

Before a kiss was something he tricked out of her—a victory for him. This time it was something she gave, with no good reason he could think of except, perhaps, she liked him. A gift…

It was different, when he thought of it that way. A new way of understanding.

He laced his fingers through hers, and they walked the rest of the way to 221B together, hand in hand.

Dinner was order-out Thai noodles and curries with Mrs. Hudson down in the landlady’s apartment, watching a remarkably stupid television show. When Sherlock tried to point out the logical deficiencies Janine first force-fed him like a baby to shut him up, then, when the food was gone, sat on his lap and kissed him to silence, with Mrs. Hudson laughing and cheering.

When he came up for air, he said, trying to retain some dignity, “Well. I suppose if you’re willing to prostitute your favors for my silence…”

She hit him, then kissed him again. He tried not to smirk stupidly, and failed.

Mrs. Hudson cocked her head, and said in a crooning voice, “Oh, now Sherlock, I knew you had it in you! You remind me of my first boyfriend—sitting on the sofa, him blushing like that. We were just fifteen…”

At thirty-seven he found that a bit galling…

Janine laughed so hard she had to bury her face in his shoulder to muffle the hysteria. He pouted anyway, but as the laughter quieted and the television show changed, he pulled her close and ran his palm over her skull, cupping it and caressing her hair. He couldn’t remember later anything they watched. Just the insane combination of feelings, all intense in ways he always avoided, all in conflict with each other. Part of him wanted to carry her to the door of Baker Street, dump her on the pavement, race up to John’s old room and grab her luggage and throw it down to her, and never talk to her again.

Quite a lot of the rest of him didn’t want anything of the sort.

He’d never slept with her. Not…completely. He could tell you a dozen terms for what they’d done. None included him fulfilling the technicalities of “real” sex. It had made him feel safer. In control. Like the man with the plan. Her mistake to love him—human error. If she’d been thinking properly, she’d have known, right? It had all been about her failure in feeling, and his success in avoiding feeling.

Only he hadn’t avoided feeling, just ignored it, only to be ambushed in the days and months and weeks afterward, feeling more and more sick when he thought what he’d done—how he’d hurt her. And, oddly, more and more stupid for having thought he’d won any kind of victory by resisting.

When Mrs. Hudson said she was off to bed, the two climbed the stairs to the landing, and stopped.

Sherlock licked his lips, uneasily, sure it was too soon to ask her in…with all that implied. Not sure he wanted to invite her in. Sure, though, that it tempted him.

He gave a glance up the second flight of stairs, toward John’s old bedroom and back. “You’re still planning on…”

She gave him the “You great idiot,” look—the one that smiled and huffed and laughed all at once. “Yes, Shay-Shay. I’m still planning on…” Her eyes flicked upward, as his had.

He nodded. His hands, apparently acting on their own, found hers. His fingers tangled with hers. “It was a good day.”

She nodded. “Not bad, considering you got in two fights and got us kicked out of a museum, genius.” Her smile softened it.

“We kissed, too,” he pointed out. Then, uncertain, he asked, “Are we an item again?”

She studied him. Her eyes weren’t cold or fierce, but they reminded him of Mycroft—thoughts layered on thoughts, too deep for him to follow. She sighed. “Nnnnnnno. Not yet, Sherl. Closer. But not yet.”

“You don’t trust me.”

One corner of that full, generous mouth quirked up. “Not really. And look at you, Shay: you don’t know what you want any more than I do. I’m not sure you trust me. Or ever did.”

He nodded. “Nice shot. Bullseye.” He hung his head. “Not your fault.”

“No,” she said, firmly, “but it’s not time to be an item again.”

He nodded.

She sighed and unknit their fingers. She tiptoed up and kissed his cheek, then slipped up the stairs to the room above.

He went into the flat and wandered around, restless and unsure and tempted to follow her up regardless of either of their reservations. It felt like a way to end the night, close the issues, resolve all the questions. After half an hour he couldn’t stand it and went back out, putting a foot on the first step.

“Don’t even _think_ it, you bad boy,” Janine called down, laughter in every word.

He couldn’t help grinning as he stepped back down and returned to the sitting room. He opened the laoptop, reviewed his business mail from previously, checked what had come in over the afternoon and evening. He noted Mary was online and texted, “If a woman lets you kiss her on the Tube, does it mean she likes you?”

She texted back, “Sherlock, with you who can tell? Who did you kiss?”

“Janine.”

There was no response for a long wait, then she typed back, “Good.” Another pause and, “I have to feed the baby. Sherlock—take your time. Be wise for a change, yeah?”

“Yeah. Kiss our girl for me.”

“Will do. Only kiss your girl if you’re ready—and she is. Right?”

“Right.”

Then, feeling the terror, he opened up an email to Mycroft. The subject heading was, “Not Making Fun of You.” The body said, “I made this, because it’s what it feels like to watch you when you’re on fire. I thought you might like to see it.” Then he attached the file he’d shown Janine earlier and pushed send before his own censors cut in. Then he waited.

It was almost an hour before Mycroft got back, and all he said was, “I am stunned and honored. I shall have to do one of you as Itzhak Perlman playing Bach… Thank you, brother dearest. I will cherish it.”

Sherlock’s felt tension seep out of him and something joyful rise up, flooding him. He rose, turned off the lights, lit the fire, and gathered up his violin and played, and played, and played. Only as he finished the “Carmen Fantasy” by Sarasate did he realize he wasn’t alone.

He met her eyes across the dim room. “I kept you awake?”

“Well, d’oh,” she said, fondly.

“Sorry.”

“No. You’re not.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Still not going to bed with you, sunshine.”

“If I play more?”

“No. Too soon. But—maybe we’re an item after all. Ok?”

He smiled, and played for another half hour on the thrill of that alone.


End file.
